


can't erase what you've done (but we can sure as hell try)

by moorehawke



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, basically i wanted them to find out abt the timeless child together, had a lot of fun writing the master as a feral bastard who just enjoys making everyone uncomfortable, i haven't seen much classic who and i haven't read lungbarrow pls dont sue me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23017771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moorehawke/pseuds/moorehawke
Summary: The message came as an untidy scrawl on her psychic paper. Middle Gallifreyan, with blotches of ink flicked across the paper at the ends of the strokes. His handwriting.12.787-413-magenta-frustration-12. Coordinates, in the old style. She shoved the paper back in her pocket and faked a smile to the fam.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hooooooo boy, this was gonna be an academy era fic and then it got very out of hand very fast and now i guess i'm rewriting the timeless children???? idk

The message came as an untidy scrawl on her psychic paper. Middle Gallifreyan, with blotches of ink flicked across the paper at the ends of the strokes. His handwriting.

_ 12.787-413-magenta-frustration-12.  _ Coordinates, in the old style. She shoved the paper back in her pocket and faked a smile to the fam.

That night, she set the TARDIS adrift in space - always more peaceful away from planets, she told them. It was also only a few seconds out from where she needed to be. She steered there manually once they were in bed, as smoothly as she could.

The place he’d called her to was an asteroid, small enough that gravity was an afterthought but somehow big enough to hold a weather system to its surface. Oxygen. A lot of oxygen. How considerate of him. She pulled up alongside and landed with barely a bump.

He was leaning against a railing built into the rock, staring out at the horizon, which on an asteroid this small was unnervingly close. Her shoes crunched on dust and sand as she moved to stand next to him.

Without looking, he aimed a knife at her ribs. Without looking, she twisted it out of his hand, bending his thumb just short of breaking it. “Touché,” he muttered.

“What do you want?”

“What, I can’t just want to see you?”

“No.”  _ There’s always a reason. _

He nodded and shrugged. “I got a message from the High Council today.”

“What.” The Doctor’s thoughts tripped over themselves. “How?”

“They sent me a summons. One of the box ones. I’m to face trial.”

“No, I mean- Gallifrey's dead."  _ You should know. _

“They’ve just looped me back in the timeline. Worked it through the drumming.” He tapped his head in that familiar, four-beat rhythm.

“...You could ignore it.”

“Oh, I plan to. But you know they’ll catch me.”

“I still don’t get it. Why've you called me here? Why not get a headstart, leave already?”

“I don’t want to.”

“....I’m sorry, still a bit lost here.”

He turned, spinning to face her, making that intense eye contact he reserved for careful monologuing and psychic discussions.  _ “I don’t want to.”  _ He repeated. “I want to stand trial.”

What the hell was he playing at? “They’ll kill you.”

“Not if you vouch for me.”

And there it was. The reason. “You want me to go back and tell them you’ve changed.”

“And haven’t I?” His eyes were pleading. “Didn’t I, as Missy?”

“You haven’t as you.”

He grinned, tension suddenly gone. “Fair point.”

It was the Doctor’s turn to turn away, now, and she did so, staring at the too-close horizon and gritting her teeth. “When will they find you?”

“Six days, five hours, forty-three minutes.”

“And if you run?”

“I get an extra hour at most. Maybe two if I kill someone, which I will.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll come to the trial. I can’t promise what I’ll say, but I’ll be there.”

He reached out a hand, brushing his fingers against her knuckle, and projected out.  _ Thank you.  _

A brief pause ran between them.

“Why did you kill them?” She asked.

“Not telling you.”

“Why not?”

“You wouldn’t believe me. I’ll show you, soon.”

“You could show me now.”

“Yeah,” the Master said nonchalantly, “I could.”

They stood in silence for a while, on a rock in the middle of nowhere. The sky was a midnight blue, with a silver galaxy stretching above them, and The Doctor watched the timelines dance between the constellations.

* * *

Six days, seven hours, and thirty-nine minutes later, she felt a stab of adrenaline echo across the remains of their psychic link. Seven minutes after that, she lost contact.

Time to go.

She dropped the fam off in Sheffield - “Go have dinner with your friends, or something. Go to the zoo, that would be fun!” - and then parked the TARDIS adrift in orbit for a bit, trying to find an outfit.

There were a lot of old clothes in this wardrobe that she was sure she should have burnt aeons ago. Faded Academy jackets, a myriad of high-necked shirts and collars, and one ballgown the Rani had leant her just after their graduation. Some of Susan’s old things were there too. They would have fit perfectly, but the Doctor closed the door on them. People had known Susan, and known what had happened to her - the first true casualty of her recklessness.

In the end, the Doctor gave up. _ To hell with propriety,  _ she thought,  _ they’ll just have to deal with me as I am.  _ She set the TARDIS to the coordinates she had saved a very, very long time ago as “home”, following the millions of faded artron trails that snaked their way to Gallifrey across time.

A few hours out, she started hitting the barriers - snags in spacetime that dragged at the TARDIS and sent it spinning like a top through the vortex. The TARDIS flashed mauve alert after mauve alert, even ringing the cloister bell during one particularly rough patch, as the Doctor was thrown from one side of the control panel to the other, reaching desperately for the controls. Eventually, they broke through into free space, and Gallifrey rose like a burnt-out sun before her.

Landing was tricky, but she locked onto the Master’s signature - right face, right age, so it was either the trial or the massacre - and peered out through the cameras.

The Citadel. Somehow, it was more terrifying to look at alive than burnt. She’d parked on a rocky outcrop just beyond the edge of the dome, near the platinum gates. She steeled herself and opened the doors to the smell of red grass and snow.

She clamped down on her mind as she walked. The citadel was full of people, and the last thing she needed was to be recognised as a renegade. She felt the thoughts of passers-by swirl past her like a stream, and distantly got impressions of curiosity. Who was this stranger? Questions about her clothes, her age (a Gallifreyan could always tell, and she was thousands of years older than most), her lack of identifiable house followed her all the way to the Spires. To her, it was like walking through a sea of inquisitive ghosts. Every now and again she recognised someone -  _ I graduated with them, he worked with me -  _ and it was like staring her former self in the face. Echoes of a life she thought she’d never get to see again.

The Spires were designed to look intimidating, impossibly tall and ever so slightly curved forward, so that they gave the impression of looking down on you as you entered. Inside was a series of desks, each with a harried-looking Gallifreyan monitoring flows of paperwork as it came and went. She strode up to one and stopped before them. “I want an audience with the President.” She said in a tone she hoped was firm.

“The President isn’t receiving visitors today.”

“Yeah, about that-” The Doctor leaned down, resting her elbows on the edge of the desk and lowering her voice. “Been away from home for a while. Not really caught up on recent events. Who  _ is _ the President right now?”

“Lady Romanadvoratrelundar.” The assistant said, as if this should be obvious even to a traveller. “She’s been President since the Doctor had Rassilon step down.”

“Really? Fantastic!” The Doctor grinned. “Good for her. Tell her I’m here and it’s urgent, okay?”

“Tell her  _ who’s  _ here?” The assistant asked suspiciously.

“Just call me an old friend of Leela. That should do the trick.”

* * *

“You know, I’m usually not into this sort of thing until at  _ least  _ the third date-  _ oof,”  _ his rapidfire speech cut off with a punch to the gut as Nameless Gallifreyan #1 and Nameless Gallifreyan #2 used the opportunity to fit a headband over his temples. A Matrix link? “You’ll all be dead in a month,” he said, half panicked, half gleeful.  _ Never stop talking.  _ “I remember killing you. You, the tall one, you’re bonded, aren’t you? To some pretty young thing at the Academy. I remember-”

And then one of them flipped a switch, and he remembered nothing of much at all.

* * *

The Doctor was sent to wait on a chair by the wall for an amount of time that, as only could happen on Gallifrey, felt both longer and shorter than it was. After she’d been reduced to tapping out the rhythm to  _ Sweet Caroline  _ on the table before her (to the dismay of the assistants, and the table, who grumbled quietly), she estimated that it had perhaps been twenty minutes. Or two. Either way, this was when a set of sliding doors across the way opened and a woman came tumbling out.

She was tall, with dark skin and endlessly spiralling hair. Handwritten notes in gold ink covered her arms. She looked unlike any Time Lord the Doctor knew, and yet, as soon as her psychic signature unfolded like a shield around her, the Doctor recognised her instantly.

“Romana!” She said, getting up, and for the first time entering the building, she let her mental shields drop a bit. The assistant who had helped her dropped their pen with a clatter.

“Doctor!” Romana surged forward and scooped her up in a hug. She had almost a foot on her in this incarnation, and the Doctor felt her feet lift off the ground for a second or two. “It’s so good to finally see you!” She set her down and stepped back. "I love the new face. You're so short! Nothing like when I last knew you. Is it 'she', now, then, or 'they'?"

"Uh, 'she', I think. Not really fussed." 

The assistant was sitting frozen at their desk, staring at the two of them. "Cartap, could you cancel my next meeting?" Romana asked, and they nodded mutely. "Lovely. Come up to my office, Doctor, let's have a proper catch up." She led the Doctor back to what turned out to be a lift, pressing the button for the forty-third level.

The second the doors closed behind her, Romana's demeanour changed from carefree to worried, smile giving way to a concerned frown and shoulders dropping. "They brought him in last night. I assume that's why you're here."

"Yes."

"Doctor…" Romana looked at her with something bordering on reproach. "The Woman has already seen what he's going to do. If we can't change it, we should at least have justice."

"Yeah, about that." The Doctor squared her shoulders. "I think I know a way to stop him."

"We already know about it, it's fixed-"

"Have you seen my TARDIS? As she is, with the upgrades? I've been working on her a good few thousand years, she's really worth a gander."

"I'm not seeing the connection here."

"The connection is that I now possess the most advanced spacetime ship of any Time Lord. And I think I might be able to break through."

"You of all people should know that meddling with fixed points is dangerous-"

"Yes,  _ I of all people.  _ Do you remember what I did in the war? That was lifetimes ago for me. Child's play." She was playing it up a bit - what she'd done in the War had also skated a fine line between success and ripping the TARDIS to shreds - but Romana didn't need to know that.

Romana pursed her lips. "It'll go before the Council." The lift slowed to a halt and the doors slid open with a  _ ding,  _ revealing a cluttered office behind them. "For now, let's talk. I haven't seen you in years!"

_ More than that, for me.  _ The Doctor smiled. "How's work?"

"Same as ever, I suppose." Romana shifted a stack of papers off an armchair and offered it to her. She sat down gratefully. The room was a mess, but a structured mess all the same - the Doctor could see colour-codes tabs peeking out from piles of memos, and a hum that told her Romana had bothered to outfit the room with a psychic net, to catch mental notes. "I'm back to President, and with Rassilon gone it's actually a lot more peaceful. The Houses are still stuffy, but we've got a few new representatives, which is interesting."

"Who's there for Lungbarrow?"

"Innocet, still. She's on her fourth life now."

"Still addicted to protocol?"

"Oh, you know it." Romana laughed. "The other week she insisted we consult the auguries for a festival day. The  _ auguries." _

The Doctor chuckled. The auguries had already been old history by the time she started at the Academy, and she wasn't sure the Citadel even had an augur these days. "Same as ever, then."

"Ugh, politics is boring." Romana leaned forward out of her chair. "I want to hear about your travels! How is Earth? How are you?"

"Earth is good." The Doctor said. "I've been trying to follow their timestream, so they're a fair bit into the twenty-first century by now." She grimaced. "Starting to attract attention." 

"Ah. They'll make contact officially quite soon, won't they?"

"In another few decades. Though I think at this point I basically count as first contact. They've appointed me President."

"Of a nation?"

"Of the planet." At Romana's expression, she hurried to elaborate. "I don't actually use the title! It just makes it easier for them to contact me. If they need to."

"You know, Doctor, I've never been the biggest fan of non-interference, but you…" Romana shook her head disbelievingly, "you make me remember why we have it."

"Yeah, well. Never been one for rules, me."

"Understatement."

"Got me."

* * *

They talked long into the evening, when the twin suns sank one after the other below the horizon. Romana poured them both drinks, fine rose cordials with just a faint hint of alcohol. This incarnation was a bit more scatterbrained than her last, and seemed to be trying to juggle about a million thoughts at once. She laughed louder than her previous incarnations too, and her smile was wide and joyous. 

“I think this is my favourite of your faces.” The Doctor said at one point. Romana grinned. 

“My favourite of yours was always the one with the scarf. Though that pointy-hair one, we saw him during the war, all skin and bones? He’s a close contender, he had a lot of pizzazz.”

“Yeah. I only got to be that one for five years.” She lapsed into silence. “He died when Rassilon tried to bring Gallifrey back.”

“That killed him?”

“Yep.” She swirled the cordial in her glass. “Well, I guess it was the Master. Or just an accident. But there was this human, and he was trapped, so- I switched places with him.”

“Doctor, I’m so sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. He was always too unstable anyway. My next face was a great storyteller."

Romana put her empty glass down on the wooden desk, who shifted slightly in complaint. “The trial will start tomorrow.” She said.

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Don’t know yet. I told him I’d be here.”

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“You’re always  _ kind _ to him. I remember what he did back when we travelled together, and I saw what he was trying to do when we broke through during the war. You should hate him.”

“I don’t hate him.” The Doctor sighed and downed the last of her cordial. 

_ “Why not?" _

“Because he’s lonely.” The truth of it surprised her. “He’s always been the one left behind, even when we were all at the Academy. Top of his class, bottom of the pecking order.”

“I think you’ll find  _ I  _ was top of our class.”

“Fair point. Close second, then.”

“So you try to help him because you feel sorry for him.”

“No, I try to help him because I know what that’s like. Always being the outcast, never quite fitting in. Always living in the shadow of something bigger than you.” She set her glass down and leaned back. “We’ve always been friends. I just underestimated how much he was scared of that.”

* * *

Vague, glowing images, thrumming in sluggish time with his hearts. Was that the Citadel, maybe? He didn't know. He reached out towards it and was treated to an impression of rage and satisfaction, and the distant smell of burning flesh. Then the thought skittered away, and he was left in the dark.

* * *

When the Doctor eventually walked her way back to the TARDIS - as she’d insisted, she refused to stay in the city if she could help it - the stars were bright in the midnight gloom. She made her way to bed, and tried not to worry about the next morning.

* * *

The trial started early, before the second sun had even risen. The doors were locked when she got to the courtrooms. The guards at the entrance moved to stop her when she approached, so she stopped limiting her thoughts and flared her psychic signature at them, controlled to the smallest radius she could manage.  _ I’m the Doctor,  _ it said,  _ and I  _ will _ pass.  _

The two of them froze. They were young, second regeneration at the most, and had probably been children during the war. They shared a look - ah, they were bonded, this was a conversation - and stepped back. She smiled and nodded politely to each before pushing the doors open.

She strode forward, towards the light ahead, leaving her signature visible. She could see them now, seated in a high semicircle around a single open space where the Master was kneeling, hands behind his back. Romana was in front of him, the High Council to her left and right. Each House was represented, and she saw Cousin Innocet among them. Memories of tutoring at stuffy, opinionated desks came back to her. Innocet looked at the Doctor with an air of careful fascination.

“Doctor,” Someone said, and she focused in on the representative from Lineacrux. “You’ve regenerated again.” He sounded displeased at the idea. He was speaking High Gallifreyan, the language of her tutors and instructors for her earliest centuries. She realised, belatedly, that she was out of practice. “How many faces have you had now?”

Ridiculous. “Fourteen. And I’d like to thank the council and the people of Gallifrey for their aid in that.”

The Doctor was level now with where the Master was kneeling, staring at the floor. Tentatively, she put out a hand and touched his shoulder.

_ Hello,  _ he said. The words he sent her were calm, but his mind was furious and confused, racing this way and that like a cornered animal.

_ Hello. Got yourself in a bit of a bind, here, haven’t you? _

_ They were debating forced regeneration until I run out of lives. Or a Confession trap.  _ He shuddered at the idea of either, but there was an air of resignation to it. His mind felt fuzzy somehow, and she reached out to examine the difference.  _ They’ve erased my memories,  _ he said, feeling her curiosity. _ Whatever I did, it must have hurt.  _ There was satisfaction in that.

_ I'll tell you later. _

“If you’re  _ quite  _ finished,” Romana interrupted with an air of mild amusement.

“Yes, of course.” The Doctor straightened up and met her gaze. “I wish to take full responsibility for the Master-”

“For  _ Koschei  _ of the House  _ Oakdown.”  _ One of the Council interrupted. She felt the Master tense next to her.

“...yes. For Koschei of the House Oakdown.” The Master vented mental fury at her -  _ THAT’S NOT MY NAME! -  _ but she held firm.

“What makes you think you have that right?”

“We’re old friends. We have a secure mental link. I’m sure our history is recorded in the Matrix for those who want to question it.” The Doctor made eye contact with Inocet, moving from her around the room. “Let me reform him. I’ll bring him back to you as a model citizen.”

Next to her, the Master exhaled an almost-silent laugh.  _ Hush, you,  _ she thought, and heard a faint and mocking  _ sorry  _ in response. The Council murmured amongst themselves.

“Handing one renegade into the care of another?” Lineacrux interrupted. “Are we mad? When has the Doctor ever shown any understanding of what it means to be a citizen of Gallifrey?”

The Doctor met his gaze evenly. Time swirled around the elder like it did most of the ancient senators; jerkily, unevenly, caught up in the memories of what came before. It was like looking at something that was just out of focus.

“I was President of this Council once.” She said. “I’ve fought your wars. I’ve led your armies. I’ve saved this world before.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Master tilt his head to look up at her. “You owe me this.”

"We owe you  _ nothing.” _

_ “Representative Lineacrux.”  _ The Doctor returned her focus to Romana, who looked irritated. “I’ll thank you not to insult the Doctor, who has come here both as a witness and as counsel.” She glared until Lineacrux backed down. “Doctor, under any other circumstances I would deny this out of hand, but Gallifrey has weeks to live.” The Master perked up a bit at that. “If you propose a solution, I want one that gets us out of this mess.”

“Done.” The Doctor set her voice firm. “If you let me take the Master with me, I can track his timeline back and stop him from ever coming back here. I can save you all.” A murmur went up at the Doctor’s words, representatives leaning in to whisper to each other.

"Changing fixed points is impossible. No one has that kind of technology.” Innocet said, looking suspicious.

“I can assure you I do.” 

“Then we put it to a vote.” Romana said. “Those in favour of this proposed recovery mission, raise their hands.” Twelve hands went up, Romana and Innocet among them. “Those in favour of punishment.” Nine. Lineacrux glared at those who didn’t join him. “Those abstaining.” Two. Romana clapped her hand on the dias before her. “It is decided. The Doctor will take the accused to atone for his crime by undoing its damage. On completion, they will return to the Citadel. This trial is over.” Another slap to the dias, and the representatives started to file out. The representative from Lineacrux glared at her as she passed. Innocet paused, as if to say something, and then hurried onwards without a word.

After a minute, it was just the Doctor, the Master, and Romana in the empty chamber. “Thank you,” the Doctor said.

“This isn’t absolution. I will call a retrial when you return,” Romana said. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Doctor.”

* * *

Their brush with Citadel officials didn’t end with the trial. Romana had the two of them taken to a hospital, checked over for injuries and recent regenerations. The nurse who examined the Doctor had his eyebrows by his hairline by the time he was done. “There must be something wrong with the machine, these readings are all over the place.” The Doctor just grinned innocently, keeping a tight hold on her mental shields.

The Master was having a lot of fun at the opposite end of the spectrum, playing friendly until the attendants got too close and then throwing images of the Time War at them in brutal, if harmless, pranks. By the time a young acolyte was done taking a blood sample she was pale as a sheet and he was grinning ear to ear.

“It’s her first life, be nice.”

“Why? Apparently she’ll be dead in a month anyway.”

_ No she won’t,  _ the Doctor projected to him through their link.  _ That’s the whole point of this. _

The Master didn’t answer, but when the acolyte came back to take his blood pressure he didn’t lash out again.

* * *

They were cleared to leave, but before they did the acolyte returned with two metallic bands, lit up a faint, glowing yellow. “President Romana asks that you put these on,” she said in a nervous voice.

“What are they?” the Master asked sullenly.

“Communications devices,” she said. “She says they’re time-locked.”

“Give one here,” the Doctor said, offering a grin and holding out her hand. The acolyte passed it to her, and she snapped it on. It moulded itself to her wrist, close-fitting but not uncomfortable, and the yellow glow got a little bit stronger.

The acolyte held the other wristband out to the Master, who smiled his widest, toothiest smile and lunged forward to snatch it from her hands. She jumped back, frightened, and he laughed. “Thanks, love,” he said, snapping it onto his wrist with a click. “Appreciate it.” At the Doctor’s frown, he pouted. “Can’t you let me have my fun?”

“No.” The Doctor turned back to the acolyte, still frozen. “Thank you, uh-”

“Miriana.”

“Thank you, Miriana. Sorry about him, he’s harmless, really.”

“I’m about as far from harmless as it gets!” the Master protested, and the Doctor shot him a glare. Miriana looked between the two of them before obviously remembering her training, snapping to attention to bow and stumbling out of the room.

“So.” The Master said once she was gone. “Clean bill of health, time-locked comms, and I’m betting- ah, yep, there it is,” he bared his teeth, fingers digging into the cuffs. “These can’t come off without a deadlock key, and I’m pretty sure they’ll knock us out if we go rogue.”

“Not a problem if we do what we said we would.”

“What  _ you _ said we would. If you’ll remember correctly, I promised nothing.”

“Yeah, well,” The Doctor fiddled with her band, feeling the metal stick to her skin like glue. “We’re chained to each other now. Let’s make the most of it and get us all out alive, yeah?”

“...yeah.”

* * *

At the end of all that, there was a briefing. The Doctor could feel the Master’s patience starting to wear thin, and sensed images on the outskirts of her mind - him stabbing Romana, him stabbing her, him stabbing himself… they played like an old-timey Earth movie to comical music on a loop in his brain. She’d have laughed if they showed literally anything else. Underneath all that, he was listening carefully. He could feel his memory straining to reconnect its synapses as he listened to Romana’s description of his crimes.

_ Did I really do that?  _ He asked the Doctor.

_ Yeah. You really did. _

_ Then what the hell did they do to me?  _ He wondered.

“The bands are a direct line of communication back to us,” Romana was saying. “You’re to go in, stop the previous Master however possible, and then leave immediately. No loitering, no sightseeing.”

“Got it.” The Doctor said. Romana waited for a response from the Master.

“...Yeah, whatever,” he finally said, slumped back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. Romana shot the Doctor a look.

“Keep him in line,” she said. The Doctor nodded. “You’re free to go.”

They wandered out through the citadel flanked by two guards, the Master broadcasting violence for all the world to see and the Doctor still keeping a tight hold on her own thoughts. People scattered out of their way as they approached.

_ THE WOMAN NEXT TO ME IS THE DOCTOR,  _ he started broadcasting, and she felt heads start turning their way. “Do you mind?” she asked.

"Not at all."

* * *

They made it to the TARDIS without too much incident, though the shock of the Master screaming his rage in the streets had a few passers-by ducking for cover. Once inside, the Doctor locked the door. The TARDIS hummed its disapproval and gave her a full readout of their wrist braces.

"They're monitoring our location in spacetime." The Master noted. "And our vital signs."

"To make sure we don't run off or kill each other."

"Planning on it?"

"Considering the former."

"Pity. I quite liked the sound of the latter."

She’d missed this. This easy banter, back and forth, jibes and jabs and jeers and a million in-jokes no one got but them. She let herself smile, just a little. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get moving.”

“Ah. Yeah. Thing about that, Doctor, is I’m not sure I want to.”

She gave him a flat look. “It’s this or they kill you stone dead."

"Can't do that if I've already killed them." A feral grin flashed across his face for a second before disappearing. "Doctor, I was angry, but not that angry. If I burned Gallifrey, it's because they did something that warranted burning."

"Like what?"

"No idea." He bit his lip, lost in thought. "Probably something racist, though, let's be honest."

"Since when do you care about other species?"

"Fair point." He tapped the side of his head. "I can  _ feel _ it, though, Doctor. Feel that rage, that fury. I was  _ angry  _ when I destroyed the Citadel, but everything beyond that is… fuzzy."

The Doctor touched his forehead.  _ May I? _ He nodded, letting his barriers down, and she dove in.

The Master's mind was, as always, a turbulent, furious mess. Memories swirled around her in waves, threatening to drag her down, and for a few seconds it was all she could do to tread water. Slowly, the Citadel came into view, and with it came flashes of memory - the Academy, their time together - stars, they had been so  _ young _ \- exams, graduations, battles, war. Stabs of longing, regret, joy, and right at the end, pure and complete fury. She tapped into that, examining closer, but when she reached where those memories should have been, there was nothing but anger and darkness. She pulled herself out of his memories and opened her eyes. "Why would they do that?"

"My guess is I saw something they don't want us to know." The Master looked pleased at the thought. "Must have been something big, too."

"Let's find out." The plan unfurled itself into being as the Doctor spoke. "You want a reason to stop yourself? Let's try curiosity. Don't you want your memories back?"

"You want  _ me _ to remember the thing that last drove me insane."

“Not the best plan, but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

The Master leaned in close, and paused for a second, considering her. “Okay,” he finally said, “I’ll play the game.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Master grinned, feral and delighted. “Fancy a trip in the Matrix?”
> 
> “Yeah,” the Doctor said, the thrill of it sending tingles into her fingers. “Just what did they want you to forget?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's shorter mostly bc i just wanted to keep the momentum going. bone app the teeth

The trip was rough, even with two of them at the controls. The TARDIS shuddered and shook around them as they reached frantically across the console, each a hindrance as much as a help. 

"Dial up the engines-"

"No! Hold it steady. Three seconds to the left-"

"We need to move  _ forwards,  _ not windwards-"

"Forwards  _ is _ windwards, just trust me-"

The ride got jerkier, and the TARDIS clanged her disapproval. "Sorry, girl," the Doctor said, pressing a palm to the central column.

Time lashed out at them with every second they moved, buffeting them this way and that like a toy boat on a raging ocean. She could hear metal groaning somewhere in the engine. The Doctor grit her teeth.

"Release the handbrake!" She yelled, pointing to a lever next to the Master's hip.

"YOU'VE HAD THE HANDBRAKE ON THIS WHOLE-"

They landed with a  _ crash _ and something that sounded suspiciously like the library losing hold of its books. The Doctor and the Master paused for breath.

"The  _ handbrake?" _

"I use it as an extra stabiliser." She shook her hair out of her face. “Told you forwards was windwards.”

“Don’t gloat, dear, it’s unbecoming.”

The Doctor stuck her tongue out at him. 

_ Oh, THAT’S mature.  _ There was still a strange fuzz at the outskirts of their bond, ragged edges where his mind hadn’t quite healed around the gap in his memory, but the message got through clear enough anyway. The Doctor grinned and headed to the doors.

There it was again, the Citadel. It was midnight now, or close enough to it, the hustle and bustle of the main streets calmed to only a couple of errant students and guards going home from late shifts. They wandered into the city, following familiar paths.

“Remember this?” The Doctor asked, pointing out a patch of ruby-red grass sheltered between two buildings.

“We studied there before our exams. I got grass stains on my robe,” The Master said.

“I got them in my hair.”

“Yeah, I remember. You were blond back then, too. Blond and lanky.”

“You wore makeup.”

They stood there, looking at the spot for another few moments, before the Master growled and turned away with a scowl on his face. The Doctor followed.

"I can't feel the other you anywhere in the Citadel," the Doctor said. "Maybe we've beaten him here."

"No." The Master shook his head. "Look there-" he jutted his chin out to point at a tangle of artron energy, just barely visible in the gloom. Technically it  _ wasn’t _ visible, but the Doctor could see it all the same, just a moment charmed of reality, a fraction out of touch. "This was the first place I came after regenerating."

"So all we need to do is find a hotspot of artron energy." The Doctor scanned the golden threads and then held her sonic up for a few seconds. "Three people in the Citadel have regenerated in the last day," she interpreted the readouts carefully. "One that way-" she pointed north, "one that way-" west, "and one straight down." She frowned at the sonic. "That's the Matrix hub."

"That must be me," the Master said. "I've always wanted to hack the Matrix."

"Didn't you, in second year?"

"Yeah, but I never got to have a proper look around."

They found the entrance to the hub, a set of winding stairs that descended under the floors of the city, and tread carefully downwards. "Shouldn't there be guards?" The Master wondered.

"You might have taken care of that yourself." 

Finally, they reached the Matrix room. The Doctor peered carefully around the corner.

There he was. The Master, already so much younger than he looked as she knew him, still burning gold and shaking. He was dressed simply, in a thin jumper and soft cotton pants, seated haphazardly on the floor like he'd been dropped there. His head was tilted back, eyes closed. 

"Bit scandalous," the Doctor remarked quietly to the version behind her. "No collar."

"Oh, like you're one to talk." The Master scoffed. "You take care of him. I'm not in the mood to get eaten by a chronovore today." He shoved her gently out from her hiding place. She stumbled into plain view, and immediately looked at the younger Master, but he was none the wiser, already deep in the twists and snarls of the Matrix and lost to the physical world. She tiptoed up to him and carefully positioned her fingers at his temples.

His eyes opened suddenly, wide and startled, solidifying quickly into panic.  _ It’s okay!  _ She projected into his mind, and the panic stopped just as quickly, replaced by confusion and relief. “Doctor,” he said, and then he fell, slumped to the side. 

“I’ve knocked him out,” she said. “You can come out now.” 

The Master stepped out of the shadows, looking down at his younger form. “That was quick,” he said.

“We should get him back to the TARDIS.”

There was a pause, a beat of hesitation that passed between them. Then both of them spoke at once.

“Why would they-”

“Don’t you want to know-”

They stopped again. The Master grinned, feral and delighted. “Fancy a trip in the Matrix?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor said, the thrill of it sending tingles into her fingers. “Just what did they want you to forget?”

* * *

The Doctor had been in the Matrix before, centuries ago. It was just as she remembered it; a tangled web of time and memory, as ordered as it was possible to be in a 4D space, which was to say, not very ordered at all. She stood on invisible ground and looked up at history. 

Walls shifted between partitions of memory, now closed and now open to one another in endless, looping patterns. She was reminded of a maze, and jumped when for half a second, one appeared around her. She dismissed it quickly and carefully, clutching hold of her mental shields. It was never wise to be distracted here.

"There's the Time War," the Master said next to her, pointing. She looked, and was greeted by a glowing orange haze and a vague impression of fury and pain. "Want to go and have a look?"

"No-" she started to say, but he grabbed her hand and suddenly there they were, in the centre of it. A child ran past, terror clear on her face. The Doctor recognised her as the guard from the courtroom; same russet edge to her mind. She was bright, but in this first life she had been too busy fleeing the war to ever think about the academy. 

They were looking through the eyes of a soldier, and the Doctor could feel hear death approaching like a ticking clock. Ten, nine, eight… their vision swung around to reveal a Dalek, battle-scarred and burnt, and the Master hissed a breath through his teeth. The soldier aimed a shot and the Doctor felt the timelines run through their head as they dove behind a piece of scrap metal. Five, four, three… they peered out from their hiding place. The metal would be too thin to stop a direct blast. Two… they could get a few good shots in before they were gone. One. They ran forward, guns blaring, and the image went dark.

The Master laughed, a breathy thing that was more fear than joy. "I'd forgotten what it was like," he said.

"The memories here are all jumbled." The Doctor looked at the swirls of information that surrounded them. "They mustn't have had time to catalogue them all properly." A vertex in front of her was playing an image of a ship crashing into bare red earth, over and over and over. "Maybe there's something here."

"No." The Master said. "This isn't it, it doesn't feel right. We need to go-" his head snapped round, eyes suddenly alight and focused. "That way." He dragged her again, pulling her through a myriad of images, courtrooms and fables and house-plantings until, finally, he stopped. "Where are we?" He whispered.

"I don't know, it was you steering." The Doctor looked around herself at the endless, shifting grey. It was like looking at an old tv through half a metre of frosted glass. Shapes moved beyond the barrier, weak and faint, and all she could see was the vaguest of impressions. Then, a pinprick of light solidified. She drifted towards it, looping around the point as it stood shining. Then, finally, she reached out and touched it, and the Matrix fell out from under her.

* * *

"We, the Scientists' Guild of Gallifrey, under the authority of the High Council, do award this honour to Tecteun the Voyager for her achievements in the field of medical research." The voice swam, like she was hearing it through water, and the Doctor floundered for a moment before the image solidified. Next to her, the Master stumbled into the memory, just as unsteady as she was.

Before them, a Councillor was pinning something onto the jacket of a man. The man was short, with dark skin and close-cut hair, and the Doctor felt a strange stab of panic at seeing his face. It echoed vaguely between her and the Master, running back and forth like spilt mercury.

"Who is he?" The Master asked as the fear reverberated through the link. The Doctor peered at the scientist's face, and saw only a stranger.

"I don't know."

The Master reached out and touched the man's face, projecting a command to know more, and the image shifted in a perfect transition. "Someone's really taken their time archiving these," he said. The new image was of a rickety spaceship, the sort a human might build in the twenty-second century. There was a woman standing in the doorway, wrapped in plain brown clothes. At her side was a child with dark skin and wide eyes. They looked uncertainly back towards the Doctor and the Master.

"Tecteun!" A voice behind them yelled, and a figure ran through them to embrace the woman. She spoke rapidfire in an untranslated language, and Tecteun replied in kind. "That's Shobogan," the Doctor said. Without thinking, she translated. "'I missed you'." The Master looked at her in surprise.

"You failed Shobogan at the Academy."

"Thanks for the reminder."

The image changed again, moving backwards in time, and they saw the child again, this time at a tall, iridescent gate on a barren planet. 

"It's okay." The voice came from the woman, who was walking up the steps to the child. "I'm here to help." The child looked wary.

Another shift. The child on board the ship. A language lesson. She said a few, halting words in Shobogan, and then switched to a melodic language, tonal and freeflowing.  _ Where am I? _

Shift. The child on Gallifrey, near a town on the outskirts of a huge crater. She held a toy in her hands and was pretending to fly it off of a cliff. Near her, a boy stood.

Shift. The same child, same day, at the bottom of the cliff. Her hands were glowing.

Shift. A lab. Shift, shift, shift. Faces, one after the other, each a shade more worried than the last. "I don't like this," the Doctor heard herself say, but she was already three steps to strange of her body, shunted out of sync. "This is wrong, Koschei, something here is very wrong." But he was looking at each face carefully, trying to piece together the puzzle with that brilliant mind of his, and he didn't hear her when she spoke.

Shift. The child was growing up, and - that was Gat, different face but same signature echoing out from her mind, same long, dark hair and severe widow's peak. "The Division," the Doctor heard her say, and somewhere in her mind, Brendan screamed.

Shift. Shift. Shift. The Master had turned back to her now, and he looked confused. "What are you doing?" She saw him ask, but she didn't hear a sound. Shift. Shift. Shift.

Gallifrey, building itself up. The citadel rising from a crater. The birth of Rassilon.

A swipe of five faces, one after the other, in the same mirror. The third was-

"Ruth!" She reached out, tried to grab for something familiar, but in a heartbeat it was gone again and Ruth was replaced by-

"We'll have to get rid of everything, I'm afraid," came a familiar, lilting voice. A jolt of pain, and then-

Lungbarrow. Her House, rising out of the confused maelstrom.

"Doctor-  _ Theta!"  _ There was a hand on her arm, and she looked down at the contact. The Master had reached in and grabbed her elbow, still blurred from the disconnect. Slowly, he pulled her back until she stood on solid ground. It was the top of a hill, a small granite shape marking the summit. "Where are we?" She asked.

"Cairn Toul," he said. Earth. She relaxed at the familiar territory.

The memories were still swirling untempered in her brain, still not quite fitting right, and she pressed a palm to her temple in an attempt to stave off the migraine threatening to wipe it all out. "What did you see?"

"Same as you. The child, growing up, becoming a soldier, and then just- blank."

"Not just a child. Did you feel the tag on that scene at the cliff? She was the first to regenerate." She slowed herself down, thought it all through. "An info grouping like this should have a metadata matrix. We find that, it'll give us the whole picture."

The Master nodded. "I'll go."

"What? No you won't. I'll go."

"You're a mess. Even in an index as organised as this I doubt you could tell strange from charmed right now.  _ I'll go." _

"We'll both go," she compromised, and the Master huffed.

"Fine, but I'm not pulling you back out."

The Master let Cairn Toul dissolve around them, peeling back the layers to reveal the confusing geometry of the Matrix once more. The two of them looked around for a minute, searching for focal points, before the Doctor spotted a concentration of silver threads below them. She grabbed the Master's hand and dove.

A metadata matrix is, in essence, an index. Or an encyclopaedia. Or a dictionary. It is the place where one goes to understand something they have already seen, to pause, rewind, and ask the important questions. This one hummed softly in front of the Doctor, tied into every memory in this hidden corner of the Matrix like the central point of an intricate spiderweb.

She held out her hand. "What does this matrix branch show?"

_ Branch image: origins _ , the metadata matrix told her happily.

"How old are these images?"

_ Branch age: Pre-Rassilon. _

"You can't be more specific?" The Master grumbled.

_ Branch age: Pre-Rassilon. _

"Okay, okay." The Doctor said. "Whose memories are these?"

_ Classified. _

"What? Classified by who?"

_ Classified. _

"This is getting us nowhere." The Master stepped forward alongside her and held his own hand to the cube. "Executive summary, files in full, all formats."

The cube thought for a moment, considering them both.  _ Access granted, _ it said, and they both went flying.

* * *

_ This was- _

_ She was- _

_ What they had done- _

The Doctor reeled, head spinning. So many faces she'd been missing. She recognised Tecteun now. Her brain scrambled to organise the memories, but they slotted into place quickly, like papers into a filing cabinet she didn't know she owned. With every piece, her anger grew. That was her childhood. Pain, confusion, and a cold, hard, lab table.

Slowly, her vision returned. The force of the information had propelled them all the way back to the physical world, slumped on the floor of the Matrix chamber. The younger Master was still lying unconscious off to one side. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her Master slowly waking up.

There was a gap in the info, starting on her twelfth life, as a youngling of barely thirty. She'd gone to sleep then, and woken up as an old man. The memories were hazy, like someone had locked them behind the same frosted glass, three feet thick and impenetrable.

She was so wrapped up in her new (old) memories that she didn't notice the Master coming at her until his hand was on her throat. He jerked her around to face him, teeth bared and eyes furious.

_ "You,"  _ he hissed,  _ "you lied to me." _

She didn't answer, hands hanging at her sides. He squeezed a little harder, threatening to crush her windpipe altogether.

"Tell me,  _ Doctor,  _ why I shouldn't burn this place to the ground. Give me one good reason."

_ I don't have one. _

He bared his teeth, got right into her face and growled.  _ "Give me a reason." _

_ No. _

With a frustrated shout, he threw her away from him, scrambling to his feet. She lay where she was, hearing his speech as he started to furiously talk his way through to understanding, but she took nothing in. Her mind was a maelstrom, red and gold and angry, and as she lay there, it began to escape her control. Shards of it stabbed outwards, shooting in random directions. Where they made contact, she felt people in the citadel above bolt awake. She sat up, uncaring fury roiling beneath her skin.

"and you always said you could-"

"Shut up."

The Master froze, looking at her, bewildered. "What?"

"Shut up." She grabbed his hand, not caring that his mind shied instinctively away from her burning thoughts. She was glowing and golden and bright as the suns, and that was a problem for everyone else but it was none of her concern. "We're going to see Romana."


End file.
